Lawson & Thompson Ltd (“we” or “us”) is committed to ensuring the secure and safe management of data held by us in relation to customers, staff and other individuals. Our staff members have a responsibility to ensure compliance with the terms of this policy, and to manage individuals’ data in accordance with the procedures outlined in this policy and documentation referred to herein.

We need to gather and use certain information about individuals. These can include customers (tenants, landlord clients etc.), employees and other individuals that we have a contractual relationship with. We manage a significant amount of data, from a variety of sources. This data contains “personal data” and “sensitive personal data” (known as “special categories of personal data” under the GDPR)

This policy sets out our duties in processing that data, and the purpose of this policy is to set out the procedures for the management of such data.

2. Legislation

It is a legal requirement that we process data correctly; we must collect, handle and store personal information in accordance with the relevant legislation.

The relevant legislation in relation to the processing of data is:

the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the GDPR);

the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (as may be amended by the proposed Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications); and

any legislation that, in respect of the United Kingdom (UK), replaces, or enacts into UK domestic law, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the proposed Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications or any other law relating to data protection, the processing of personal data and privacy as a consequence of the UK leaving the European Union.

3. Data

3.1 We hold a variety of data relating to individuals, including customers and employees (also referred to as “data subjects”) which is known as personal data. The personal data held and processed by us is detailed within the “fair processing notice” (FPN) – Appendix 1 – and the data protection addendum of the terms and conditions of employment which has been provided to all employees

3.1.1 Personal data is that from which a living individual can be identified either by that data alone, or in conjunction with other data held by us.

3.1.2 We also hold personal data that is sensitive in nature (i.e. reveals a data subject’s racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, political opinions, or relates to health or sexual orientation). This is special category personal data or sensitive personal data.

4. Processing of personal data

4.1 We are permitted to process personal data on behalf of data subjects provided it is doing so on one of the following grounds:

processing with the consent of the data subject (see clause 4.4 hereof);

processing is necessary for the performance of a contract between us and the data subject or for entering into a contract with the data subject;

processing is necessary for our compliance with a legal obligation;

processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another person; or

processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests.

4.2 Fair processing notice

4.2.1 We have produced a fair processing notice (FPN) which we are required to provide to all customers whose personal data is held by us. That FPN must be provided to the customer from the outset of processing their personal data and they should be advised of the terms of the FPN when it is provided to them.

4.2.2 The FPN sets out the personal data processed by us and the basis for that processing. This document is provided to all our customers at the outset of processing their data.

4.3 Employees

4.3.1 Employee personal data and, where applicable, special category personal data or sensitive personal data, is held and processed by us. Details of the data held and processing of that data is contained within the employee FPN which is provided to employees at the same time as their contract of employment.

4.3.2 A copy of any employee’s personal data held by us is available upon written request by that employee from Alex Thompson.

4.4 Consent

Consent as a ground of processing will require to be used from time to time by us when processing personal data. It should be used by us where no other alternative ground for processing is available. In the event that we require to obtain consent to process a data subject’s personal data, we shall obtain that consent in writing. The consent provided by the data subject must be freely given and the data subject will be required to sign a relevant consent form if willing to consent. Any consent to be obtained by us must be for a specific and defined purpose (i.e. general consent cannot be sought).

In the event that we process special category personal data or sensitive personal data, we must do so in accordance with one of the following grounds of processing:

the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of this data for a specified purpose;

processing is necessary for carrying out obligations or exercising rights related to employment or social security;

processing is necessary to protect the vital interest of the data subject or, if the data subject is incapable of giving consent, the vital interests of another person;

processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity; and

processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

5. Data sharing

5.1 We share our data with various third-parties for numerous reasons in order that day to day activities are carried out in accordance with our relevant policies and procedures. In order that we can monitor compliance by these third-parties with data protection laws, we will require the third-party organisations to enter in to an agreement with us to govern the processing of data, security measures to be implemented and responsibility for breaches.

5.2 Data sharing

5.2.1 Personal data is from time to time shared amongst us and third-parties who require to process personal data that we process as well. Both us and the third-party will be processing that data in their individual capacities as data controllers.

5.2.2 Where we share in the processing of personal data with a third-party organisation (e.g. for processing of the employees’ pension), we shall require the third-party organisation to enter in to a data sharing agreement with us in accordance with the terms of the model data sharing agreement set out in Appendix 2 to this policy.

5.3 Data processors

A data processor is a third-party entity that processes personal data on behalf of us and are frequently engaged if certain parts of our work is outsourced (e.g. payroll, maintenance and repair works).

5.3.1 A data processor must comply with data protection laws. Our data processors must ensure they have appropriate technical security measures in place, maintain records of processing activities and notify us if a data breach is suffered.

5.3.2 If a data processor wishes to sub-contact their processing, our prior written consent must be obtained. Upon a sub-contracting of processing, the data processor will be liable in full for the data protection breaches of their sub-contractors.

5.3.3 Where we contract with a third-party to process personal data held by us, it shall require the third-party to enter in to a data protection addendum with us in accordance with the terms of the model data protection addendum set out in Appendix 3 to this policy.

6. Data storage and security

All personal data held by us must be stored securely, whether electronically or in paper format.

6.1 Paper storage

if personal data is stored on paper it should be kept in a secure place where unauthorised personnel cannot access it. Employees should make sure that no personal data is left where unauthorised personnel can access it. When the personal data is no longer required it must be disposed of by the employee so as to ensure its destruction. If the personal data requires to be retained on a physical file then the employee should ensure that it is properly secured within the file (e.g. stapled, or the documents are put on a Treasury Tag within the file) which is then stored in accordance with our storage provisions.

6.2 Electronic storage

personal data stored electronically must also be protected from unauthorised use and access. Personal data should be password protected when being sent internally or externally to our data processors or those with whom we have entered in to a data sharing agreement. If personal data is stored on removable media (CD, DVD, USB memory stick) then that removable media must be stored securely at all times when not being used. Personal data should not be saved directly to mobile devices and should be stored on designated drivers and servers.

7. Breaches

7.1 A data breach can occur at any point when handling personal data and we have reporting duties in the event of a data breach or potential breach occurring. Breaches which pose a risk to the rights and freedoms of the data subjects who are the subject of the breach require to be reported externally in accordance with clause 7.3 hereof.

7.2 Internal reporting

We take the security of data very seriously and in the unlikely event of a breach will take the following steps:

As soon as the breach or potential breach has occurred, and in any event no later than six (6) hours after it has occurred, the Point of Contact (PoC) must be notified in writing of (i) the breach; (ii) how it occurred; and (iii) what the likely impact of that breach is on any data subject(s);

we must seek to contain the breach by whatever means available;

the PoC must consider whether the breach is one which requires to be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and data subjects affected and do so in accordance with this clause 7;

notify third parties in accordance with the terms of any applicable data sharing agreements

7.3 Reporting to the ICO

The PoC is required to report any breaches which pose a risk to the rights and freedoms of the data subjects who are the subject of the breach to the ICO within 72 hours of the breach occurring. The PoC must also consider whether it is appropriate to notify those data subjects affected by the breach.

9.1 Certain rights are provided to data subjects under the GDPR. Data subjects are entitled to view the personal data held about them by us, whether in written or electronic form

9.2 Data subjects have a right to request a restriction of processing their data, a right to be forgotten and a right to object to our processing of their data. These rights are notified to our customers in our FPN.

9.3 Subject access requests

Data subjects are permitted to view their data held by us upon making a request to do so (a subject access request). Upon receipt of a request by a data subject, we must respond to the subject access request within one month of the date of receipt of the request. We:

9.3.1 must provide the data subject with an electronic or hard copy of the personal data requested, unless any exemption to the provision of that data applies in law;

9.3.2 where the personal data comprises data relating to other Data subjects, must take reasonable steps to obtain consent from those data subjects to the disclosure of that personal data to the data subject who has made the subject access request; or

9.3.3 where we do not hold the personal data sought by the data subject, must confirm that we do not hold any personal data sought by the data subject as soon as practicably possible, and in any event, not later than one month from the date on which the request was made.

9.4 The right to be forgotten

9.4.1 A data subject can exercise their right to be forgotten by submitting a request in writing to us seeking that we erase the data subject’s personal data in its entirety.

9.4.2 Each request received by us will require to be considered on its own merits and legal advice will require to be obtained in relation to such requests from time to time. The PoC will have responsibility for accepting or refusing the data subject’s request in accordance with this clause and will respond in writing to the request.

9.5 The right to restrict or object to processing

9.5.1 A data subject may request that we restrict our processing of the data subject’s personal data, or object to the processing of that data.

9.5.1.1 In the event that any direct marketing is undertaken from time to time by us, a data subject has an absolute right to object to processing of this nature by us, and if we receive a written request to cease processing for this purpose, then we must do so immediately.

9.5.2 Each request received by us will require to be considered on its own merits and legal advice will require to be obtained in relation to such requests from time to time. The PoC will have responsibility for accepting or refusing the data subject’s request in accordance with clause 9.5 and will respond in writing to the request.

10. Privacy impact assessments

10.1 Privacy impact assessments (PIAs) are a means of assisting us in identifying and reducing the risks that our operations have on personal privacy of data subjects.

10.2 We shall:

10.2.1 Carry out a PIA before undertaking a project or processing activity which poses a high risk to an individual’s privacy. High risk can include, but is not limited to, activities using information relating to health or race, or the implementation of a new IT system for storing and accessing personal data.

10.2.2 In carrying out a PIA, include a description of the processing activity, its purpose, an assessment of the need for the processing, a summary of the risks identified and the measures that we will take to reduce those risks, and details of any security measures that require to be taken to protect the personal data.

10.3 We will require to consult the ICO in the event that a PIA identifies a high level of risk which cannot be reduced. The PoC will be responsible for such reporting, and where a high level of risk is identified by those carrying out the PIA they require to notify the PoC within five (5) working days.

11. Archiving, retention and destruction of data

We cannot store and retain personal data indefinitely. We must ensure that personal data is only retained for the period necessary. we shall ensure that all personal data is archived and destroyed timeously and at the point that we no longer need to retain that personal data in accordance with the periods specified within the table at Appendix 4 hereto.

12. Personal information that this website collects and why we collect it

This website collects and uses personal information for the following reasons:

12.1 Site visitation tracking

Like most websites, this site uses Google Analytics (GA) to track user interaction. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site, to better understand how they find and use our web pages and to see their journey through the website.

Although GA records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system, none of this information personally identifies you to us. GA also records your computer’s IP address which could be used to personally identify you but Google do not grant us access to this. We consider Google to be a third party data processor.

GA makes use of cookies, details of which can be found on Google’s developer guides. FYI our website uses the analytics.js implementation of GA.

Disabling cookies on your internet browser will stop GA from tracking any part of your visit to pages within this website.

12.2 Our news stories

Should you choose to add a comment to any posts that we have published on our news section, the name and email address you enter with your comment will be saved to this website’s database, along with your computer’s IP address and the time and date that you submitted the comment. This information is only used to identify you as a contributor to the comment section of the respective blog post and is not passed on to any of the third party data processors .

Your comment and it’s associated personal data will remain on this site until we see fit to either 1.) remove the comment or 2.) remove the news post. Should you wish to have the comment and it’s associated personal data deleted, please email us using the email address that you commented with.

If you are under 16 years of age you MUST obtain parental consent before posting a comment on our news stories.

NOTE: You should avoid entering personally identifiable information to the actual comment field of any news post comments that you submit on this website.

12.3 Contact forms and email links

Should you choose to contact us using the contact form on our Contact us page the data that you supply will be stored by this website. We will never pass your data to any of the third party data processors. Instead the data will be collated into an email and sent to us over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Our SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted using SHA-2, 256-bit cryptography before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by our local computers and devices.

12.4 Email Property Alerts

If you choose to join our email property alerts, the email address that you submit to us will be forwarded to Mail Chimp who provide us with email marketing services. We consider Mail Chimp to be a third party data processor. The email address that you submit will not be stored within this website’s own database or in any of our internal computer systems.

Your email address will remain within Mail Chimp database for as long as we continue to use Mail Chimp services for email marketing or until you specifically request removal from the list. You can do this by unsubscribing using the unsubscribe links contained in any email newsletters that we send you or by requesting removal via email. When requesting removal via email, please send your email to us using the email account that is subscribed to the mailing list.

If you are under 16 years of age you MUST obtain parental consent before joining our email newsletter.

While your email address remains within the Mail Chimp database, you will receive periodic new property updates emails from us.

12.5 How we store your personal information

As detailed in the section above, if you submit a comment to a news post published on this website some personal information will be stored within this website’s database. This data is currently stored in an identifiable fashion; a limitation of the content management system that this website is build on (WordPress)

12.6 About this websites server

This website is hosted by Catalyst2 within a UK data centre located in London.

All traffic (transferral of files) between this website and your browser is encrypted and delivered over HTTPS.

13. Changes to our privacy policy

This privacy policy may change from time to time inline with legislation or industry developments. We will not explicitly inform our clients or website users of these changes. Instead, we recommend that you check this page occasionally for any policy changes.